One day at Guild, one of my friends gifted me two pairs of worn out cargo pants, in case I’d like to find a way to reuse them. Some people really know you! They were made of tencel or some similar wood pulp based fibre. They had been much worn, like a favourite garment. And they had so many pockets! Ones with zips, some that were more of a welt pocket… some that were stitched shut and had never been ripped open for use–lots to play with. So I cut them up, extracted the cotton drawstring cords for later use, and began piecing the intact fabric into bag linings and likewise, the pockets.

There was an entire series of bark cloth curtain fabric bags. I used up the boomerang bags patches I was given by one of the Adelaide organisers a while back pretty quickly. Then I did a series with the remaining secondhand IKEA fabric my daughter gave me a while back (the orange and white stripes). They match my ironing board cover and they are extra large.

Finally, I converted some fabric I remember buying at Paddy’s market in Melbourne at least 20 years ago (cough, maybe it was 30 years ago) into about 4 more bags. I must have been reliving my childhood as an admirer of ancient Egypt when I bought this, I think. I vaguely remember feeling obliged to buy something even though I couldn’t spare the cash at that time (it must have been the nature of the interaction with the stallholder). The print gestures in that direction, but I really can’t see it as a garment. Some of these bags have already gone to friends, and others await their ultimate destination.

That sounds gorgeous, Rhonda! I recently saw some Japanese bags made on that same kind of drawstring design but with more side panels, made with all kinds of indigo dyed scraps. They were just beautiful. For every piece of fabric there is a good use if you think long enough.